CHRIS KELLY: You could fill City Hall with what we don't know

The search for Acting Mayor Bill Courtright ended Wednesday, when the headlines finally forced him to return multiple calls from The Times-Tribune.

Turns out he wasn’t missing, just busy working on a top-secret plan to save the city from objective reality, which has a nasty anti-Scranton bias.

The mayor refused to share details of his top-secret plan. Heck, we only know there is a secret plan because Sen. John Blake, D-Archbald, spilled the beans on pending changes to Act 205. Mr. Courtright, council and the police and fire unions planned to use the law to shore up the city’s poisoned pension fund.

Mr. Courtright proposed a 0.75 percent tax on commuters. Council has fast-tracked the tax, hoping to inflict it by October. The Act 205 changes, however, include a provision requiring the city to impose the same levy on residents, which would swell Scranton’s wage tax to a smothering 4.15 percent. It is now a merely stifling 3.4 percent, with 1 percent going to the teachers union via the Scranton School District.

“I don’t know that it will happen, and if it happens, if they do pass the law, I don’t know exactly how it will affect us,” the acting mayor said. “It hasn’t happened yet. So we went forward. We’ll have to see what happens if it passes. … I’m hoping it doesn’t, but I’ll deal with it when it happens — if it happens.”

Wait. What?

It appears that what Mr. Courtright was saying is that it is unclear the law will pass with a commensurate increase on residents or how it would affect the city. This simply is not true, and Mr. Blake told him so. Maybe Mr. Courtright was humming with a finger in each ear, but it is going to happen, and Scrantonians will have to pay the same as commuters.

This is an election year. The Legislature is controlled by Republicans. At the top of the GOP ticket is Gov. Tom Corbett, R-Drillers, who is less popular than poison ivy. Republicans are not about to do any favors for a Democratic stronghold like Scranton, let alone pass a law that fleeces non-residents to pay for said stronghold’s sins.

Mr. Blake said so. By the way, he also so thinks it’s only fair that city residents share the burden being laid upon commuters. That’s because it is fair, and Mr. Blake’s constituency includes a lot of commuters who vote.

The irony is rich enough to choke a goat. City officials’ plan to tax commuters without representation is being thwarted by state officials those same commuters can hold accountable at the polls. Finally, a contemporary example the tea party can compare to colonial times.

You’re welcome.

Because Mr. Courtright has been mum on his top-secret plan, we must look for clues wherever we can. Councilman Pat Rogan provided some at Thursday’s council meeting

Mr. Rogan said that if the law is enacted as Mr. Blake and objective reality predict, the city could simply reduce its wage tax by 0.75 percent, then raise it by that amount to comply. There are at least two obvious problems with this idea:

■ It would be vulnerable to court challenges because it clearly violates legislative intent. The state Supreme Court -- which upheld more than $20 million in arbitration awards to the police and fire unions against the clear intent of Act 47 — might buy it, but getting there would cost untold time and money.

■ The Act 205 money be dumped into the pension fund. A cut in the wage tax would punch a hole in the operating budget. Mr. Rogan said it wouldn’t be big, because some wage tax money already goes toward pensions. How much? He didn’t say. My guess is he doesn’t know.

No one can know how much of a projected $5 million the commuter tax will generate annually. On Saturday, The Times-Tribune reported that the tax likely won’t apply to workers from Carbondale and other places where municipal and school district wage taxes are already higher than Scranton’s proposed commuter tax.

Mr. Courtright said he didn’t know how that would affect the city’s plans. He said to ask city solicitor Jason Shrive, who (surprise!) could not be reached for comment.

So there’s a lot we don’t know, including the details of Mr. Courtright’s top-secret plan. What we can count on is that whatever happens from here, it will be costly to many and benefit a select few.

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